From the Associated Press’ Official: Wedding Fire Was Criminal Act–Kuwaiti Newspaper Says Groom’s Angry Ex-Wife Started Deadly Blaze:
Kuwaiti authorities have apprehended the person suspected of setting fire to a wedding tent and killing 41 people and said Monday the motive was personal. Local newspapers reported the groom’s ex-wife was the arsonist.
The inferno Saturday night in the tribal area of al-Jahra, west of Kuwait City, ate up the women’s tent in just three minutes and left behind bodies so charred they were unrecognizable. Guests likely crushed one another in a desperate attempt to flee. It was still unclear if the bride had survived.
The alleged arsonist has been identified and “confessed to committing the crime for personal reasons,” Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Mohammed al-Saber told state-owned Kuwait television…
The independent Al-Qabas daily said the groom’s former wife, who is 23 years old, poured gasoline on the tent and lit it because she felt her ex-husband mistreated her when they were married…
Kuwaitis celebrate weddings in separate parties for men and women, with children attending the women’s event which features singing and dancing and a dinner buffet.
An earlier story says that the fire killed “41 women and children,” which makes sense, since it was the women’s festivities that were targeted.
We’ll see if the Kuwaiti police’s claim that the ex-wife confessed to the arson and/or their evidence against her holds up. But longtime Fathers & Families activist Bill Zamzow writes in with an interesting thought–“This could well be the largest number of victims of a DV homicide(s) case on record.”